Lemon Curry?
© 2025 by Walter Reimer

Bernie Phlute ©  eocostello
Titles by  marmelmm
Music by Ferde Grofé
Suits by ‘Rick’ of Altoona

Thumbnail art by  rockbaker

Part Eleven.



The train began to slow, and its whistle shrieked. “Ciudad de Mixtéca, ¡próxima parada! ¡Todos a la Ciudad de Mixtéca!” the conductor called out as he made his way down the car’s aisle. In his wake, passengers were starting to gather up their bags and small children.

“Oh!” Julia said. “That’s our stop, Jacob.”

“Huh?” the Boston terrier blinked at her, momentarily bewildered. “Our stop? Oh! Our stop!” He stood up abruptly. “I need to get my partner. It was nice to meet you, Julia.”

“It was nice meeting you, Jacob,” the chiweenie replied with an engaging smile.

It was hard going, sort of like a salmon breasting a river current, for Dorpf, but he finally made it the sleeping compartment. He fumbled with the door and finally shoved it aside and entered. “Bernie?” he asked.

A mass under a blanket stirred.

“Bernie?”

A feathered paw shook free of the blanket and waved. “Gway,” the stork said.

“We’re here.”

“Huh?”

“At the station.”

“Whuh?”

It became readily apparent to the terrier that the stork might not be a morning person.

Dorpf reached out and poked Phlute in the back. “We’re here at the Mixteca City train station. Our assignment?”

There was a pause as his words quite literally soaked into Phlute’s sleeping form, like a glass of water poured out on desert sand. The blanket suddenly exploded off him as the stork rolled out of the upper bunk and fell to the floor, twitching slightly before sitting up. “Oh, hi Jacob,” Bernie said after he shook his head and clambered to his feet. “We’re here?”

“Yes, Bernie,” and while the stork put himself in order the terrier got their suitcases. “Here you are,” he said as Bernie finished getting dressed, offering his partner his larger suitcase.

“Thanks, Jacob,” and the two left the compartment.

As they walked past the bench in coach, Jacob noticed that the young woman, Julia, was gone. The look of disappointment on the Boston terrier’s face was palpable, an expression of loss that was completely missed by Bernie, who paused at the door and noticed that Jacob wasn’t tagging along. “Come on, Jacob,” Bernie urged.

The terrier sighed. “Okay.”

They passed through the bustling train station and emerged into the bright morning sunlight. A few cabbies folded their newspapers and ground out their cigarettes as they spotted the two Americans.

“Do we need a taxi?” Jacob asked.

Bernie glanced down at him. “Huh? Yeah, probably.” He paused. “Do you know where we’re going?”

“I thought you did,” Jacob said.

“Oh.” The stork looked slightly down-in-the-beak. “I suppose we could ask . . . “

“Excuse me,” said a male rat in accented English. He was about midway between Bernie and Jacob in height and dressed in a chauffeur’s gray uniform. “Excuse me?”

“It’s over there, I think,” Bernie said, absently waving a paw in the wrong direction.

The rat appeared unperturbed. “You are Señor Bernie Phlute?”

Bernie looked momentarily startled. “Oh! Um, yes?”

The man smiled. “My name is Campoviejo, Señor. Professor Ortiz sent me to bring you to him.”

The stork’s smile morphed into a wary look. “How did he know to send you?”

Campoviejo replied, “Your office wired ahead, Señor.”

“Oh. Well, that’s all right then. Let’s go.”

“Of course, Señor,” the rat said. “This way,” and to the evident disappointment of the cabbies, he led the terrier and the stork to a well-polished black 1935 Mercedes 200 saloon car. Campoviejo ushered them into the back seat, closing the door before taking his position behind the steering wheel.

“Wow, swanky ride,” Bernie observed.

“Si, Señor,” the rat said as he started the car’s engine. “Is good car,” and without warning he applied his foot to the accelerator pedal as if it owed him money. The car erupted from its parking space like a stung feral racehorse, jinked hard right, then left, to avoid traffic, and reefed into a tight turn, leaving the station and entering the city’s traffic flow.

The violent motions of the big car had pressed the two passengers into the leather upholstery before throwing them hard against the left-paw door, then the right, leaving the two Minkerton’s agents holding onto each other for dear life as the rat:

Swung around a stone pillar at a speed of nearly sixty miles an hour, grazing it so closely that Bernie and Jacob were certain that some of the car’s paint was left behind; and

Executed a double-right-angle reverse curve, missing by a hair’s breadth two other vehicles traveling in the opposite direction and one in his own.

There was nothing to be done; the two Americans held onto each other and closed their eyes, expecting a horrific crash.

“We are here, Señor.”

The stork and the terrier each cautiously opened one eye, discovered they were still clinging to each other. They disengaged quickly, Jacob clearing his throat and adjusting his tie while Bernie lightly smacked him on his shoulder with a paw. “Where are we?” Bernie asked.

“The house of Professor Ortiz, Señor,” Campoviejo replied. He got out of the car and opened the passenger door.

The two Americans gingerly climbed out of the big Mercedes and walked around it, looking for scrapes, dents, or bloodstains, and finding nothing wrong with the car.

They stared at Campoviejo, who smiled widely and said, “With a Mercedes, señores, the crumple zone, it is the other car." He gestured. “Come with me, please,” and they numbly followed the rat to the front door of the house.




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